It's Enough
by EmmaAndKeyboard
Summary: AU from Motel California. Scott and Stiles die in the flames. Now who's left to save the day? Lydia- who's not even sure she's not the murderer? Derek- who can't even keep his own pack alive? Allison- who was hanging on by a thread that snapped? It certainly won't be Cora. She doesn't even go here. Not a Stiles or Scott bashing fic, just my little Season 3 playscape.
1. Chapter 1

The explosion knocks out her hearing for a moment. Lydia stays pressed low to the ground, gripping Allison tight. Before her, two of her friends (two of only four) are engulfed in the flames.

For a moment, a wonderful moment, she thought they were getting out of this hellhole intact. Stiles had seemed so confident when he stepped into the puddle of gasoline, so firm. Scott was rocked, yes, but Stiles has a certain authority about him. He's been doing this longer than she has. Lydia trusted him to fix things, more than she probably should have.

It had been too late. Lydia saw the change in Scott's eyes, but Stiles was looking at the flame in his hand. The flare was falling towards the fire before any of them knew it, and Lydia only had time to shove Allison out of the way.

Scott and Stiles are best friends. They had been since grade school. Lydia remembers being jealous of how close they were, back before she gained the popularity she used to hold so dear. As a lonely third grader, braiding her own hair in the back of the classroom and hoping her mom remembered to pick her up that afternoon, nothing had appealed to her more than the concept of friendship. Looking at Stiles and Scott shoving each other at the front of the room, she decided that what was she wanted. Without the shoving, of course. She just wanted a best friend.

She knows now that was never what was in the cards for her. Scott and Stiles were a different kind of friendship than what she had with Jackson, certainly, but also with Allison or Danny. They were brothers, like Stiles had said. Together until the end.

They managed that. The until the end part. Lydia is anything but stupid. The flames are rising higher and higher, the open night air feeding them. There's no way they're still alive, logically. She'll just skip right over the denial stage of grief, if that's all right with the universe.

Allison stirs underneath her, and she knows they need to move farther away from the flames. The silence in her ears is morphing into a sharp ringing. They shouldn't be damaged this badly. It must be adrenaline.

Lydia places her palms on the ground, ready to lift herself up, when something catches her eye. The inferno of flames, which she'd been trying to avoid looking at, shoots higher into the sky, and something black stirs within it.

Her heart leaps in her chest- it's impossible, yes, but Lydia's seen a lot of impossible things in the past few months. Maybe Scott's werewolf powers kicked in. Maybe he's getting up, pulling Stiles with him. She blinks against the wall of heat the flames are sending off, trying to look closer.

It happens in a flash, and then she's gone.

When she comes to, Isaac is slapping her. "Lydia! What the hell is going on?!"

The ringing is gone. She shakes her head a little bit, registering scalding of the skin on one side of her face. The tears come almost instantly.

"Stiles-" she chokes out. "And Scott. They're dead."

Isaac stares down at her in shock, and Lydia doesn't bother to scoot away from him like she normally would.

"No," Isaac says slowly. "No way. Sc-scott almost died yesterday, but he was fine. No way."

"It was the heat," Lydia reasons, realizing as she says it. "Whatever's doing this, it knew that we figured it out. It used Scott-that gas. Scott had a flare, the one we left behind. We couldn't stop him with heat, because he was already holding it-"

Isaac jerks away from her suddenly, and she flips over to see him sprinting off into the treeline.

Her side is tender where she hit the ground, and Lydia knows mentally she's not all there, but she pulls in a deep breath, trying to detach herself. She can't call Stiles to come help her. They're on their own. She eases herself up into a sitting position, taking in the scene before her.

Allison is sitting there, just sitting there. Boyd is crouched a few feet away from her, watching. He turns to stare at Lydia, eyes glinting gold.

"Stiles?" he asks.

"H-he tried to stop Scott," she said. "He almost did."

"The fire burnt itself out," he tells her. "Burned their bodies up. There's nothing left."

"That's-"she chokes a bit, closes her eyes briefly before continuing. "That can't be right. It shouldn't have been that hot."

"It was," he replies simply. His gaze darts back over to Allison, and Lydia remembers Stiles mentioning something about Boyd- how Allison shot arrows at him and Erica. After a tense moment, he turns back to her. "I need to find Isaac."

He's gone before she can even consider asking him to say.

After Boyd, the night falls into a simple progression of events. A quick phone call to Allison's father, moving forward to sit next to her friend, and waiting until he arrives, hours later- just as the sun is peeking up over the trees. Isaac and Boyd do not return.

Chris Argent takes one look at his daughter before scooping her up into his arms. Allison remains like a limp rag doll, and Lydia knows this is no fairy tale love story like they may have giggled about in some other world. Her mother, her aunt, even her grandfather- Scott is the last straw. Scott is too much. She is broke now, maybe permanently.

Four friends.

"It's just for one night."

"A lot can happen in one night."

One.

"Lydia?"

Mr. Argent's voice breaks into her thoughts, and she knows he can see the crazy in her eyes the same way Stiles could.

"Lydia, I can take you home, too, if you want," he offers.

She nods, and then she is bundled into the passenger seat. She doesn't know where the blanket came from, but she also knows there's about twenty firearms in the trunk, so maybe the Argents are just over-prepared people.

Mr. Argent disappears for several minutes, and her phone buzzes. Danny. The only one left. She ignores it. Better to keep him away from this. Don't let the motel eat him, too.

At night she sometimes dreams of wolves who eat her alive. Wolves or lizards who flick their tongues in her face.

This has no name, and it won't eat her. She won't be lured into the flames, and she won't walk there either. She could though, and not scream when they lick at her feet.

She knows that. She doesn't have to scream.

She just does.

Burnt until there's nothing left.

No.

Mr. Argent's car is away from the bus and the big burn spot. It faces the woods, and Lydia doesn't look behind. She looks forward, forward into the woods that ate Isaac.

Allison could be asleep now. Lydia hopes she is, but she doesn't look back to check.

Forward.

Into the woods.

By the time Mr. Argent comes back, she is gone. Not into the black this time, but forward.


	2. Chapter 2

Chris Argent has not had a particularly good year. It's his own fault. He should have known he wasn't going to have a good year when they moved back to Beacon Hills. He'd grown up here more so than anywhere else. He had wanted his daughter to know it as home like he had.

He remembers Beacon Hills as a happy town. Small, sleepy, but happy. Werewolves are in tune with nature, Hunters have to be in tune with people. Beacon Hills was a place where both were happy, and his mother always told him that was because of their Code.

"They don't hurt us, we don't hurt them," she said to him. Screamed it, really. They say boys look for their mothers in the women they love. It's easy to see how Victoria is like Verity.

Was. Was like Verity.

Beacon Hills is poison now, and as much as he hates to admit it, it's probably because of what happened to the Hales. All of this, all because of Kate.

"Dammit," he mutters, smacking the steering wheel. He checks the rear view mirror to make sure his outburst hadn't woken Allison, but she remains still, unconscious, thankfully.

So if this town is poison, why the hell is he back? Allison had wanted it, but he would rather she be safe than happy. The excuse he made to himself at the time was that he wanted the backup of Derek's pack if his father starts to stir up trouble again. Deep down, he knows that's bullshit.

He's in Beacon Hills again because he's worried about these damn teenagers.

Stray werewolves, kanimas, Alpha packs, it's hard for him to leave these kids with that. He barely knows Isaac, Boyd, or Erica, but he does know Stiles and especially Lydia and Scott. What kind of Hunter is he if he doesn't stick around to keep an eye on them? There's no need to get himself directly involved, but he can be close, just in case.

Except it's not working. He and Allison haven't even unpacked and three of them are dead.

They should leave. Issac and Boyd? He glances in the rear view mirror again. They're not worth risking his daughter. Derek is their Alpha. He turned them, and they're his responsibility.

Lydia is trickier. There's no telling with her. When he'd returned to his vehicle, she was gone. God knows where. Normally, he would search for her, but right now Chris is tired. He's bone-dead tired, he's still forty miles from home, and he has a grieving daughter and a psychotic father to deal with.

Dammit.

The motel could have been anything. It could have been some sort of roundabout strike from the Alpha Pack. It could be sprits, a curse, maybe even a fire demon. No, it's probably not a fire demon.

"Don't hunt it," he mutters. "You hunt werewolves, and the Alpha Pack isn't your problem."

It really isn't. When he was little, the Hale pack always dealt with all the other wolf packs that intruded into Beacon Hills. It never came down to murder of innocents in the old days, or if it did, his mother never mentioned it to him.

Derek would have barely been running on the full moons when that was the norm. Chris tries to think back. Had established anything with Derek? Talked over anything peacefully? Not really. He just assumed Hale remembered how it used to be and would go by those rules.

Maybe they should stay. Just until the Alpha Pack leaves. Well, until the Alpha Pack leaves or takes over. He's a good hunter, but he isn't a miracle worker. If Deucalion wins, there's no point in him even trying to fight it. If it comes down to that, he'll take Allison and run.

"What do I do, Victoria?" he asks, whispering despite the fact that no one is listening. "Do I stay and hover, or do I get us out?"

Allison should make the decisions, technically, but matriarch of their little two-and-a-half Hunters clan or not, she's still his daughter. He doesn't want her to have to make these choices until she has to.

The mountains rushing past his windows begin to break up into trees. They're getting closer. Dread begins to pool icy-cold at the bottom of his stomach. He wants to beat the phone lines there. There are some things a parent doesn't need to ever hear from a stranger.

The Stilinski residence is closer to the woods than his house, where he sometimes feels buried knee deep in lawn mowers and yard gnomes. Stiles' Jeep is gone, probably parked at the school. Chris wonders who will end up retrieving it, if anyone will. He doubts the Sherriff will ever want to see it again. Maybe it will sit there for years, rusting, before some janitor decides to get it towed. That seems right, somehow. Beacon Hills is forgetting its dead too quickly.

The sound of gravel on his wheels as he pulls into the driveway grates on his consciousness. Allison is still sleeping in the backseat, eerily still. She's a noisy sleeper, always has been. It's unnatural, but if she's made it this long without waking up, she should be fine for a few more minutes.

The Sheriff has the door open before he's even out of the car, coffee cup in hand, ready to go to work, probably. His expression is curious, not mournful, and Chris knows he's made it in time.

"This a personal matter or business?" the Sheriff calls out, not unfriendly. "I'd appreciate you heading to the station if it's business. I'm heading to another county to assist in a search and rescue."

He can do this. He is a Hunter. He is calm, he is professional, and he can do this.

"Actually, I'm here about that, Sheriff," he says, trying to keep his voice steady as he approaches the front door. "Did they tell you who they were looking for?"

The man shakes his head. "All I know is they think it might have to do with what's been going on here. If you know something-"

Chris does not have the authority his father had, that Kate has, but he musters up as much as he can. "What I'm about to tell you stays between us. Do you understand that?"

The Sheriff blinks, stunned, and straightens his posture, realizing this isn't a friendly visit.

Chris takes a deep breath. "They're going to call you again in a few minutes when they make the connection. They'll send someone else in your department without connections. They're looking for two teenage boys, Sheriff. Scott and Stiles."

The man has him pinned against the door as soon as the shock passes, and Chris lets him.

"What have you done with them?!" he growls directly into Chris' ear, breath hot and shaking with rage and panic.

"It wasn't me. Allison was on the trip, I had to go pick her up. It wasn't me," he repeats calmly, and tries not to think of what mother bears will do to protect their cubs.

The Sheriff lets him go, falling back to pace frantically, hands rubbing at his head.

"What do you know?!" he demands, not even sparing Chris a glance.

"What I know isn't something you need to hear right now," he responds. "Now, you can take me into questioning, but I won't say anything on record. You'd have to kill me first. Some things are better-"

He cuts off as the phone rings. The Sheriff freezes.

"That will be them," Chris says. "When you want answers, when you're done searching, come talk to me."

The other man turns his head to stare at him, all threat from his eyes gone. Replacing the malice is a pleading expression, almost childlike. The last thing he wants to do is answer that phone.

"I'm sorry," Chris tells him, the way the doctor told him after Victoria. He jerks his head towards the door. "Answer that. You know where to find me."

He walks away with purpose, taking care not look back like Orpheus did. The Sheriff does not call after him. He feels tears well up in his eyes when he sees Allison still asleep in the back, and if there's anything left to be happy about, Chris is grateful he's not in the same boat as the man he's leaving behind.

As Chris pulls away and sees front door swinging lightly in the morning breeze, wide open, he realizes he's been lying to himself again. There's a third option.

They can stay. Screw the code and all his other promises. Apparently everyone else has.

They can stay, and they can fight.


End file.
